Sedgwick County KSGenWeb

Portrait And Biographical Album of Sedgwick County, Kan.

Chapman Brothers 1888

Page 637

F. A. WILLIAMS, of the firm of F. A. Williams & Bro., proprietors of the Fourth Avenue Planing Mill, No. 202 Fourth avenue. These enterprising gentlemen are conducting their business very successfully, and by their energy, shrewdness and honorable dealings have placed it upon a solid basis among the important manufacturing industries of Wichita. This mill is devoted to the manufacture of odd sizes of sashes and doors, windows and door frames, moldings, wood columns, brackets, etc. The firm do all kinds of finish work and home decorations, doing their work as well and as cheaply as any firm in the city. F. A. Williams, of this sketch, was born in the State of New York, Feb. 13, 1848. His parents were F. H. and Cynthia (Innman) Williams.

            Our subject was but a child when his parents moved to Illinois, and there, when a school boy of sixteen, he dropped his studies and enlisted in Company H, 138th Illinois Infantry, in the year 1864, actuated by the patriotic desire to aid the cause o the Union, and for six months, in camp and on the field, he did faithful and gallant service as a soldier in the Federal army. On his return to his home after his experience at the seat of war the lad resumed his studies in the public schools, and secured a good education. He then turned his natural liking for mechanical pursuits to a practical use, and entered his father's planing-mill, remaining employed there until 1870, and by his intelligent application to his work gaining a thorough knowledge of it, even to its minutest detail. In that year Mr. Williams left the home of his youth and early manhood to seek a broader field of labor in Kansas. He settled in Olathe, where he became engaged as a contractor, being thus employed for some years with considerable profit.

            In 1874 Mr. Williams returned to Illinois, and resumed his old employment in the planing-mill business, which he conducted successfully the ensuing ten years. While a resident of this State Mr. Williams had been very favorably impressed with its many natural advantages, and even after his return to Illinois had watched with keen interest its marvelous growth during the decade that elapsed since his residence there, at which time Sedgwick County had but begun to be settled, it not having been organized until after he first took up his residence in Olathe. He now resolved to make his home in Kansas a second time, and profit again by its many fine openings for men of business and talent. Accordingly he came to Wichita, where he again entered into business as a contractor, continuing thus engaged until 1886. In that year, in company with his brother and the members of the Southwest Pump Company, he built the Fourth Avenue Planing Mill, which they now jointly occupy. They are conducting a very large and prosperous business, employing from fifteen to twenty men continuously. This firm is always prompt and ready in meeting its monetary obligations, and its credit stands high in financial circles.

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